48 CARNIVORA. 



the leopard. The head is shorter than in the lion, and the line of the 

 head and nose forms one curve. The ears are short. The hody is 

 rather rounder than in the leopard, tiger, or cat. The legs are longer 

 in proportion and smaller, even smaller in proportion than the cat's : 

 the foot is not so broad and clumsy as in the lion, tiger, leopard, or cat. 

 The claws are midway between the lion's and the dog's, perhaps 

 nearer the dog 1 . It is retromingent. The viscera are like the lion's, 

 <fec. ; only I think that the caecum is not quite so long. The os hyoides 

 is attached to the head as in the cat. 



Of the Cat-tribe. 



Cats are one degree removed from the lion, leopard, and tiger, &c. 

 The differences are known, but are small. Their legs are smaller in 

 proportion to the body, but more especially the fore-legs. The ears are 

 not so broad, are longer, and terminate in a point. The iris is elliptical, 

 and the os hyoides is attached to the head by bones continued between 

 them, which in some degree confine the motion of the larynx ; this is 

 likewise nearer the root of the tongue or head, which makes a difference 

 in the voice. 



Cats never show any signs of .lewdness, either the he or the she, 

 excepting when she is caterwauling. Cats are subject to vast anger ; 

 as their danger increases their fear changes into rage and becomes 

 furious. They cannot bear to be teazed, but fly immediately into a 

 passion : neither can they bear to be severely punished without re- 

 taliating. As they feed upon animals that they kill, nature has endowed 

 them with the proper methods, which to appearance would be called 

 slyness or cunning. 



[The Margay (Felis tigrina).~\ 

 A cat about the size of a common cat, is spotted something like a 

 leopard, but rather darker, and what answer to the dark spots in the 

 legs are not round but oblong, and much in the direction of the ribs ; 

 and the tail is annulated with the two coloui-s. Mr. White 2 has a 

 drawing of it. The os hyoides is fixed to the head by a continuation of 

 bones as in the common cat; so that it is higher or nearer the jaws 

 than in the lion. The trachea, the contents of the thorax, the stomach, 

 and intestines are the same as in the Hon. 



1 [In a live Chittah at the Zoological Gardens, I observed that the fore-claws 

 were retracted so as not to touch the ground ; but yet were not concealed in the 

 duplicature of integument and hair, as in the typical Felinm ; the hinder claws, by 

 the action of the Flexor longus dig itorum pedis in progression, are drawn out so far 

 as to touch the surface on which it walks and produce a clatter.] 



2 £Probably Gilbert White, the Historian of Selbourne, is here referred to.] 



